Esty arrived Monday for a full work week on Capitol Hill that includes House floor votes and a Veterans’ Affairs subcommittee vote on a veterans-COLA bill she co-wrote.

“I am looking forward to getting back to work and continuing to serve the folks of central and northwestern Connecticut,” Esty said in a statement Monday. “I was elected to do a job, and I will continue to do that job to the best of my ability for the remainder of my term.”

On Tuesday, Esty is to receive a “Roadway Safety Champion Award” from the American Traffic Safety Services Association for her work on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

For Esty, 58, it’s a last hurrah of sorts — a beginning of the end of what had been a promising career in Congress.

On March 26 with fellow Democrats in Connecticut abandoning her, Esty bowed out of what was shaping up as an easy election for her fourth term.

She did so just three days after Hearst Connecticut Media and other news outlets detailed efforts to quietly ease out a former chief of staff who abused a former scheduler — a process Esty herself described as faulty.

In announcing her decision not to seek re-election this November, Esty said she would devote the remainder of her time on Capitol Hill “to fight for action and meaningful change” on workplace anti-abuse protections — the kind Congress overall has specifically avoided even though the House in February passed a far-reaching reform bill.

Tuesday, Esty’s first full day back, is to be punctuated with media interviews, including ones with Hearst Connecticut Media and Connecticut-based network affiliates.

Esty’s COLA bill guarantees a cost of living adjustment for veterans with service-related disabilities, as well as at least some of their survivors. It is an example of the kind of nuts-and-bolts work that Esty relishes.

Her office wall is adorned with bipartisan bills she navigated into enactment during five years in Congress: The INSPIRE Act, aimed at getting women and girls interested in aerospace careers; the Veterans Appeals Improvement and Modernization Act of 2017; and bills to break up the transportation pipeline of sex trafficking in young girls and boys.

Esty returned to D.C. from her home in Cheshire, her true political base of operations.

More as an explanation than an excuse, Esty said one reason she did not know of the abusive behavior of former chief of staff Tony Baker toward former scheduler Anna Kain was that she was in the D.C. office only three or four days a week, and not at all during lengthy congressional recesses.

That, plus her attention to detail on legislation and search for bipartisan common ground, arguably blinded her to what was going on virtually under her own nose.

Baker and Kain had a consensual relationship through much of 2013, Esty’s first year in office after winning her initial election to Congress in 2012. The two broke it off by mutual consent.

But when Baker switched from his initial role as legislative director to chief of staff in January 2014, he became Kain’s boss.

That is when the abusive behavior started in earnest, former Esty staffers have said.

An affidavit for a protective order against Baker that Kain obtained in 2016 stated Baker screamed at Kain, and once punched her in the back — an assault that Baker denied through a spokesman.

It also said Baker told Kain if she reported his abusive behavior, he would prevent her from getting another job in D.C.

Kain left Esty’s office in March 2015 but the abuse continued. It blew wide open after a party at a bar that Baker threw for himself to mark his 10th anniversary of working on Capitol Hill, the affidavit states.

Baker became intoxicated and after the gathering was over, he called or texted Kain about 50 times. His manner grew increasingly belligerent when she didn’t respond, and he threatened to find her and kill her.

Kain initially was determined to keep the abuse hidden. But as the #MeToo movement flourished and powerful men such as Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein and Sen. Al Franken fell amid disclosures of improper behavior, Kain decided to go public with her account of what transpired in Esty’s office.

In interviews leading up to the disclosure, Esty said she bore responsibility for allowing Baker to work for almost three months after the May 5 incident, instead of suspending him immediately while an investigation proceeded.

She also blamed herself for following a lawyer’s advice and concluding a nondisclosure agreement with Baker that included a letter of recommendation.

Esty said she offered what she termed a “limited” recommendation on the phone that enabled Baker to get a position as Ohio coordinator with Newtown-based Sandy Hook Promise.

The organization, which conducts training workshops for schools, students and community organizations to help them spot violence-prone individuals, discharged Baker as revelations began bubbling to the surface.

After the abuse story became public, Esty tried to withstand the inevitable firestorm, saying: “I have to do better.”

But after returning home to Cheshire, she faced a rising chorus of Democrats either lukewarm to her staying in office or outright calling for her to step down.

In the end, Esty could not withstand the political tsunami she was partly responsible for unleashing.